Welcome, friend! Today I have the pleasure of hosting author, Edward Ashton, to chat about his latest book, The Fourth Consort. Edward is well known for Mickey7. Enjoy the interview!
The Fourth Consort
Dalton Greaves is a hero. He’s one of humankind’s first representatives to Unity, a pan-species confederation working to bring all sentient life into a single benevolent brotherhood.
That’s what they told him, anyway. The only actual members of Unity that he’s ever met are Boreau, a giant snail who seems more interested in plunder than spreading love and harmony, and Boreau’s human sidekick, Neera, who Dalton strongly suspects roped him into this gig so that she wouldn’t become the next one of Boreau’s crew to get eaten by locals while prospecting.
Funny thing, though—turns out there actually is a benevolent confederation out there, working for the good of all life. They call themselves the Assembly, and they really don’t like Unity. More to the point, they really, really don’t like Unity’s new human minions.
When an encounter between Boreau’s scout ship and an Assembly cruiser over a newly discovered world ends badly for both parties, Dalton finds himself marooned, caught between a stickman, one of the Assembly’s nightmarish shock troops, the planet’s natives, who aren’t winning any congeniality prizes themselves, and Neera, who might actually be the most dangerous of the three. To survive, he’ll need to navigate palace intrigue, alien morality, and a proposal that he literally cannot refuse, all while making sure Neera doesn’t come to the conclusion that he’s worth more to her dead than alive.
Part first contact story, part dark comedy, and part bizarre love triangle, The Fourth Consort asks an important how far would you go to survive? And more importantly, how many drinks would you need to go there?
Get to know the author: Edward Ashton
Hi Edward! It is a pleasure to have you on Armed with A Book. Please tell me and my readers a bit about yourself.
Well, in addition to being the author of seven novels (my newest, After the Fall, just went back to my editor yesterday) I’m also a working scientist. I was part of a team that gained approval last year for a revolutionary new treatment for pediatric glioblastoma that’s already saved the lives of several hundred children who would otherwise have had no viable treatment options, a fact which brings me some comfort when I see a bad review of one of my books. Also, I make my own maple syrup.
The Fourth Consort is described as a mix of first-contact sci-fi, dark comedy, and survival thriller. What inspired this particular blend of genres?
I think dark comedy is pretty much my brand at this point. You could fairly describe any of my books that way. I wanted to write a first contact story because I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently about communication. It’s difficult enough to be heard and understood when we have a shared history and culture. How much more so when we’re trying to speak with something that doesn’t even use the same kind of proteins that we do? As far as the survival part goes, I’m just a big fan. Much better, in my opinion, than not surviving.
Your bio mentions your work in cancer research and teaching quantum physics. How does your scientific background influence the way you build worlds and craft alien civilizations in your books? Are there any elements of The Fourth Consort that were inspired by real scientific concepts?
I try not to pull too much of my day job into my writing. I’m an educator by nature, so once I get going on that stuff it’s hard to stop, and even physics students don’t want to read a physics textbook. The main way that my scientific background bleeds into my fiction is in my need to make sure that even when I’m writing far-future science fiction, everything is at least plausible. Nothing pulls me out of a story faster than reading something and immediately saying, “Wait. That’s… impossible.” I think it’s okay to write about things that we don’t know are possible, but I feel pretty strongly about not writing about things that we know are impossible. My day job helps me keep those two categories straight.
Your previous books (Mickey7, Antimatter Blues) had elements of humor mixed with serious themes. How does The Fourth Consort compare, and did you approach writing it differently?
My approach to humor is definitely different in this book than in my previous ones. A lot of the humor in Mickey7 and Antimatter Blues (and my other books as well) comes in the form of snark and gallows humor from the protagonists. Mickey Barnes is in a terrible position in Mickey7, and he deals with that largely by laughing at himself and his situation. In The Fourth Consort, Dalton Greaves is a very different sort of person—more earnest, I think, and also probably a bit more thoughtful. To balance that out, I introduced some overtly comedic side characters (Dalton’s fellow consorts and his AI assistant.) This was the first time I’ve done this, and I have to say I’m really pleased with the results. I’ve been told that this is my funniest book, but it’s not in any way a farce. That’s a tough line to walk, but I honestly feel like I mostly pulled it off.
I enjoyed the variety of alien species, including Boreau, a giant snail, in the book. What was your process for creating such unique extraterrestrial beings?
One of the things I really admire about authors like Adrian Tchaikovsky is the way they’re able to start with a different sort of body and a different sort of mind (say, a giant intelligent jumping spider) and then speculate as to how those would lead to different ways of perceiving the world, different ethics and morality, etc. That’s a lot of what I was trying to do here—start with a creature that had a very different evolutionary journey than we did, and then end with a social structure and behavioral pattern that makes sense for that journey. As far as the specific creatures I designed, I deliberately set out to make my aliens as off-puttingly alien as I could. It’s easy to feel empathy with an Ewok. It’s a lot harder we’re talking about Jack Skellington with mandibles and claws, or “the bastard offspring of a tarantula and a velociraptor.”
Unity and the Assembly are two very different factions with competing ideologies. How did you approach designing these intergalactic organizations? Were you influenced by any real-world history or politics?
Absolutely. With Unity in particular I was thinking a lot about the European colonizers of the 15th – 19th centuries. Those guys told themselves (and seem to have actually believed) that they were helping the indigenous people they found, bringing them the wonders of civilization and the One True Church and whatnot, when in fact what they were up to was the most base sort of exploitation. The Assembly is maybe a bit more true to the mission, but even so what they’re doing reeks of the sort of father-knows-best paternalism that we still see all too much of directed toward the global south.
Humanity has just joined Unity, and Dalton is among its first representatives. Was this a smooth transition, or did it come with complications? How does Dalton feel about being part of this intergalactic alliance?
The thing about Dalton is that, both in his dealings with Unity and in the rest of his life, he’s much more a pragmatist than an idealist. He signs up for the military not because he’s committed to some patriotic mission, but because it’s a means to an end, a way for a poor kid from West Virginia to gain an education at an elite university. In the same way, he signs on with Neera and Boreau because it’s a way to hit the reset button on a life that’s pretty much gone off the rails. I think he undergoes some real moral growth over the course of the novel, but certainly at the beginning he’s mostly just allowing events to carry him along. That’s not a great way to go through life, but in my observation it’s a more common approach than most of us would like to admit.
What was the most fun or challenging aspect of writing the bizarre love triangle in this story?
The thing I had to be very careful about was preventing things from slipping from “weird but plausible” into outright farce. Farces can be fun. I’ve read and enjoyed plenty of them. I’m not interested in writing them, though, and in this case I had to make sure I stayed well clear of that line.
Do you have a favourite quote or scene in The Fourth Consort that you find yourself going back to?
I really love the time Dalton spends in prison with Virgil prior to her execution. The idea of two characters who had mostly been antagonists finding common ground and mutual empathy in extremis is an appealing one to me. I put a lot of time and care into writing that sequence, and I feel like it’s some of my best work.
What message or feeling do you hope readers take away after finishing the book?
The feeling I always want readers to take away from my books is, “Hey. That was a lot of fun.” As far as I’m concerned, anything beyond that is gravy.
Mickey 17, is the inspiration for an upcoming motion picture. Congratulations! How involved are you in bringing your story to the screen?
Very little, honestly. I had one two hour call with Director Bong back in 2022 where we talked through the details of the book and he very kindly asked me what I though the emotional heart of the book was, and promised to make that a part of the film. Beyond that, I’ve just been a spectator. I have to say, though, that based on the trailers it really looks like he’s done a spectacular job. I’ll get to see the film at the London premiere in a couple of weeks. I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts afterwards.
Can you share anything about your next project?
My newest book, which as I mentioned previously I just turned in to my editor, is called After the Fall. It’s basically a novelization of the classic Porno for Pyros banger “Pets.”
I kid, of course, but it does involve humans winding up on the short end of the domestication stick for a change. It was a lot of fun to write, and it includes what I think is probably my most memorable character yet. I’d expect to see it in bookstores around this time next year.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
Thanks so much for taking the time to chat. I really appreciate the opportunity.
Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me and share with my readers.
Thanks for joining us! Connect with Edward on his website. You can find him on Instagram, Threads, Bluesky or Twitter @edashtonwriting.
If you enjoy SciFi and comedy, I hope you will check out The Fourth Consort on Goodreads.
Many thanks to St Martins’s Press for giving me a chance to highlight this book on my blog in exchange for an honest review. 🙂
Be First to Comment